Two NC State scientists honored with Goodnight Innovation Distinguished Professorships

By Staff

The College of Sciences recently awarded distinguished professorships to two of its outstanding scientists. The professorships were made possible by a gift from longtime NC State supporters Jim and Ann Goodnight.

Ruoying He of the Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences was named a Goodnight Innovation Distinguished Professor. He is a prominent oceanographer who joined the NC State faculty in 2007. His research expertise includes ocean circulation dynamics, air-sea interaction and marine physical-biogeochemical interactions. As the director of the Ocean Observing and Modeling Group, he leads a team of researchers that conducts coastal ocean observations; performs remote-sensing data analyses; and develops predictive models of ocean circulation, air-sea-wave interactions and physical-biogeochemical couplings.

Fred Wright, professor in the Departments of Statistics and Biological Sciences and director of the Bioinformatics Research Center, was also named a Goodnight Innovation Distinguished Professor. Wright is an internationally known biostatistician who joined the NC State faculty in 2013. His wide-ranging research interests include genomic bioinformatics, toxicogenomics and the statistical principles underlying high-dimensional data analysis. His grant activities range from the development of new methods of gene mapping to expression-quantitative trait mapping for multiple tissues.